A Burning Thing {Avi Kaplan fanfic}

-8-

"I could get used to this," Ellie said, lying in my arms with her head on my chest. It was after midnight, but after our late morning neither of us was terribly sleepy yet.

"I don't know …" I mused. She sat up and looked at me, appalled.

I laughed. "No, I just mean I can't imagine ever being 'used to it'. I think we could do this every day for the rest of our lives and I'd still find it incredible."

She relaxed again, but gave me a playful punch. "No fair scaring me like that. I thought maybe reality wasn’t living up to expectation."

"Not a chance," I murmured against her temple. "You are far better than advertised."

"Avi!"

"Seriously, Ellie … we just met but I can't remember ever having felt this totally comfortable and yet totally excited to be with anyone before." She reached down and trailed her fingertips from my hip to my shoulder, then wrapped a leg around my waist.

"Well that's good, because I'm going to make sure you stay that way," she whispered, kissing along my jaw and behind my ear. “Excited, that is.”

"Ohh … baby … ninety percent of me wants to keep doing this until the sun comes up, but there's this nagging ten percent that thinks I should get some sleep before I have to meet with the Trio tomorrow to go over our tour schedule."

Ellie suddenly leaped from my arms, bouncing up and down on her knees and clapping her hands. "Squeeee! Sorry but I am having a huge fangirl moment. A PTX tour! I'm totally dying."

"Ooof, so am I, can you please stop jiggling the bed!"

She flopped back down. "I'm sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. I won’t let it happen again. Do you think maybe you'll introduce me one day if I promise to behave myself?"

"Well I hope so – it would be a little weird for my friends never to meet my girlfriend."

She giggled. "It sounds strange to hear you say that."

"What, that I have friends?" That earned me another punch. "I know. It's only been … what … two days? Three? It's kind of a blur. But considering our current position,” I gestured towards our naked, tangled legs, “I hope it's okay to call you my girlfriend."

She scrunched her nose adorably and nodded.

"Anyways, it can't be for a day or two because Kevin will never forgive me if he misses the big reveal, and to be honest I'm not sure I'm ready to share you yet.” I hugged her closer. “Scott and Mitch have a tendency to take over, so I can't bring you into the picture unless I'm ready for them to whisk you away to grill you about yourself, about us, about Austin (I should warn you, Scott has a crush) and then probably try to braid flowers into your hair or something else weird and intrusive. They're just not that good with boundaries."

"And Kirstie?" she asked, with a strange tone in her voice.

"Kirstie's terrific – she's a little less OTT than Scott and Mitch but still a lot of fun and super sweet. I'm sure you'll get along great."

"You know, it's not really possible to be a Pentatonix fan without hearing all the rumours about you two …" she trailed off, playing distractedly with my chest hair.

"Hey now, not you too! I swear to god I have never had any romantic interest in her. From day one it was all business, and before I knew it we'd spent so much time around each other she was like my little sister. We will never be anything more than friends." I hugged Ellie then gripped her shoulders gently, pulling back and looking her in the eyes.

"Please promise me you won't jump to any wild conclusions just because some blog said I smiled a certain way at Kirstie or someone on Twitter thought I was having a little too much fun with a 'chair girl' at a concert." She still looked dubious. "I love my job, but it's still a job and I don't ever get a performance confused with real life."

She cuddled once more into my chest and nuzzled under my chin. "I'll try. But I think I'm entitled to feel a little bewildered by all this. Most girls don't have to worry about their boyfriends having fans all over the world who would gladly drop their panties at the sound of his voice."

"You don't say," I laughed. "Is that how you figure it?"

"Oh, hell yes. Believe me, that voice of yours melted my panties the first time I heard it."

"You mean at the video shoot? The bonfire?"

"It wasn't the fire that had me hot and bothered. Why do you think I had to go lie down in my truck? I was afraid my brother would catch me ogling you and toss you on the fire!" We both laughed, though I thought that it wasn't really outside the realm of possibility.

"But as you know, that wasn't actually the first time I heard you. In fact, if I'm totally confessing, it's possible I may have known that you were going to be at that video shoot when I decided to visit."

"Ellie! Are you trying to say you stalked me?!" I was genuinely stunned to think that she may have engineered our meeting.

She giggled shyly. "Well, I didn't think it would end up quite like this – but I did hope I might get to meet the man behind the sexy voice."

I kissed her gently, then rolled her away from me, wrapping my arms around her from behind. "I hate to bring it up again, but I honestly do need to get some sleep, so just let me hold you and try not to wiggle your bottom around too much or it's never going to happen."

She settled into me, the small spoon to my large one, and I carefully shifted my hips back a bit more to prevent her unrepentantly wiggly backside from stirring up trouble.

"Good night beautiful," I said, but she was already asleep.

~~~~~